Month: March 2016

Over the passed week, I have been hard at work on the current assessment for Scripting for Game Developers. The assessment is to make a game similar to the classic angry birds but with a bit of a new perspective. Instead of flinging birds at pigs, we get to drive cars into some kind of blocks in order to gain points. Its an interesting concept and I am currently most of the way through it but I still need to implement the blocks and come up with some kind of scoring system.

Along with the assessment there is also a 1st person shooter brief that the class started on last week, when we implemented rocket jumping, unfortunately with the work load, I have been putting it off as it doesn’t have an effect on my grade and I
have other assessment I need to focus on. Ideally it will give me something to do for the study week that’s coming up in a fortnights time because it does look kind of fun, and practicing programming is the best and maybe the only way to really learn how to program.

Over the past week I have discovered that having a job that doesn’t understand/respect how university works in regards to assessment is very frustrating, and having to work when I need to be studying is having serious repercussions on my time management, not only is it taking up my time but its a lot harder to fight procrastination when you are too tired to function properly.

In regards to Scripting for Game Developers, I had my first run in with hardware limitations with my code. Since last trimester I have stopped using my desktop computer and started using a laptop so I can get work done on the go, and I found out fairly quickly that track pads don’t work well for video games, for example, in the Shoot ’em up that’s currently being made in class the original control scheme used clicking to shoot lasers whilst using w, a, s and d but, and I’m not exactly sure why, whenever I was moving I could no longer shoot. This was a very easy problem to fix but it is good to keep in mind that if I want someone to be able to play my game on a laptop without a mouse, then I wouldn’t be able to use and track pad inputs, and its always good to consider who you want to play your game when you’re making it.

Trimester three has started and I’m back to flexing my programming muscles. This trimester will be a lot more full on, and iv already had a taste of whats to come. This trimester iv already experienced a few new things, for example this trimester I will be programming in both the C# (which is the previous programming language I used) and C++ which iv never used before. Along with with the new language I have also got a class dedicated to simulating industry (in the form of dealing with clients) and another class dedicated to practicing game mechanics, which will be the topic for most of my blog posts for this trimester.

The subject Scripting for Game Developers is the second subject at SAE to teach the Game Development students C# programming. The first module, Introduction to Scripting, focused on the basics of programming (introducing students to the different variable types and proper syntax) and this module is focused on teaching students different mechanics eg. Rocket jumping, AI detection and controller support, and more.

The first in class task was to create a 2.5D ‘Shoot ’em up’ with certain functions such as multiple weapons, scrolling enemies and a boundary for the player. The first mechanics implemented were player movement and the boundary as well as a single laser weapon.

This was a great start to the trimester for me. I did very well in the previous scripting class and these tasks were a very nice warm up to get back into scripting this trimester and a good indication of what’s to come.

By the next class, I intend to have a guided missile weapon implemented that deals more damage, targets the closest enemy at the time of it being fired but has a higher cool down.